Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-07-22
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CHINESE MERCHANTS.
THE MONGOLiANS BRANCHING OUT
AS GRocERS, ETC.

| Chinese Prosperity as Instanced by the
Growth of Provision Stores in Mott
Street-Articles Kept for Sale-Sweet.
meats, Liquors.
Ever since the Americans native born
blue blooded) have given up the grocery
business and left it almost entirely to
| their Irish and German brethren, the
Chinese have been quietly starting gro
| Gerry stores on their own account. AS a
matter of compliment they say, s!Had the
Americans been properly attending to
| their own business, the Cinnamon would
not have started SO many oriental Del
| icatessens' in this city," as they think the
pure blooded American is a model of
| business integrity if nothing else.
| The present great Chinese prosperity in
| the provision line in New York started
| about six years ago. There were then
| but two stores, those of Wa Kee and
Kwong Hing Lung. There are now
| thirty-three, mostly on Mott street. THY
are still on the increase almost monthly.
| Their progress is only impeded by the
| present want of suitable premises in which
| to open them. Already almost all of Mott
street, from Pell street to Chatham square,
| has been taken up by Chinese merchants;
| even the large tenement houses are rap
| idly being converted into Chinese head
quarters. Nearly quarter of China
town is now bought and paid for by the
Celestials.
CHINESE BUSINESS CAPACITY.
1t may be. interesting to many readers
to get an idea of the extent of the Chinese
business capacity OF New York and what
they deal in mostly. Let us first glance
over their retail trade exclusively among
themselves. The following are the prin-
cipal articles of trade in the Chinese gro.
ceries: Dried fowls, smoked and sailed
Chinese pork, sausages, ham, dried oys-
tiers, smoked oysters, dried and smoked
clans, shad dried, smoked and canned in
oil, and other fishes cured in Ike manner,
shrimps and Holsters dried, bean curdle
in all varieties, like the Italian macaroni;
also canned bean curdIe as cats; y.
Chinese cabbage, dried, and also in i =
reIs, cured in vinegar. This is real, ,e.
lcious, and beats the saslrkraut OF Ger.
man make in every respect Bamboo
shoots i'll all varieties, lily flowers dried,
sea weeds, fungus, mushrooms, sharks
fms These are so cured that they re-
semble dried starch. When cooked with
pork they taste like a delicately cooked
tripe. Beche de mer Ia species of sea
worm), greatly valued as food tonic by
all orientals. Bears paws dried sell at
about $12 per pound retail; also as tonic
bears gall as high as $40 per pound.
Chinese yams in all grades. One called
the WOO toe is really the finest; it is a
species not at all known here but in taste
is much finer than the ordinary potato; it
has very tough but thin skin. When
growing it has leaves resembling our
water lilies. just about this time of the
year the Chinese gardeners of New York
are furnishing their countrymen with
fresh grown Chinese vegetables, which
are rather poor in quality, probably owing
to the peculiar soil here. The koo qua, or
bitter melon, is most favorite dish
among the New York Cinnamon just now,
and it is eaten like the continental pump
kins by the Yankees of New England.
koo qua is grown somewhere on Long
Island and is sold at twenty-five cents g.
pound fresh.
PUMPKINS AND BIRDS NESTS.
But the Chinese pumpkins grown here
are mere limitations of what they are in
their own native soil. Birds nests are
also extensively sold among the well to
do class of our Monaghan citizens They
are sold all the way from S. to $40 per
pound, according to quality. The best
are plucked off from the rocks when the
busy little swallows have just finished in
building their tender but brilliant little
homes with the finest part of delicate
little shelltish that aboundS in the south
ern seas. But the most curious of all the
articles of trade among the Chinese GRO
ceries are the dried ducks feet. Every
one of these being cut off about the knee
joints of the ducks, are cleansed, skinned
and boned, the web part then filled with
the liver of the duck ard the whole care
fully tied up with one of the cleanSed en-
trails. These are sold at the groceries at
about ten cents foot. Fifteen of these
feet constitute full dish in first class
Chinese restaurant, for which they Charge
$3.50. They are cooked with bamboo
shoots and mushrooms and pickles. They
really form one of the best dishes in the
Chinese bill of fare. The line of Chinese
sweetmeats is varied and fine, consisting
of nearly every known and unknown fruiL
of the world.
There are four principal Chinese liquors
sold in the stores. An ordinary glass of
a strong distilled liquor called the lung
ka Pc" or the five grained liquor"
would probably Send an ordinary Irish
man to the other side of Jordan, but John
Chinaman could drink it by the bowlful
day in and day out, and yet they do not
seem to burn up all the shirts they iron.
Wong Chin Foo in New York World.
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